Pages

Monday, November 22, 2010

City of Pittsburgh vs. Harry Potter

This weekend I treated myself to a movie date for one. Sometime I really enjoy a theater by myself with no one to compete for my attention. Except this weekend there was one loud, obnoxious person who did everything they could to wreck my me-date... Harry Potter.

Let me start by saying there are certain people, like Joanna & Alyssa, who I'd like to exclude from this rant. They are normal people & deserve to go see HP if they want... the rest of these crazy fans on the other hand, stop effing-up my day! First of all let's talk about the injustice of a major Pittsburgh theater not opening a movie ABOUT PITTSBURGH in order to have more HP theaters. So on my way to go to a different theater that was actually showing the movie I wanted I had to sit in HP traffic, fight the HP'ers to get a parking spot, get a ticket, hell I had to fight them even to WALK b/c clearly nothing else is happening in the world & they can be as inconsiderate as they want. I understand that you've invested hundreds of hours of your life to reading all the books, seeing all the movies, re-reading & re-watching them all in preparation for the finale, & have invested enough time that you could have learned another language (seriously people. think about THAT)... but that doesn't give you permission to hyperventilate ON MY NECK in line to get your stub ripped. Btw, that was a 20-something woman hyperventilating on my neck. Seriously.

But I did make it. And I did see my Pittsburgh move. And I DID love it.

Since I know most of you aren't from these part & wouldn't know the difference, allow me to offer you a Pittsburgher's perspective:

Things they did right:

Almost everything.

Pittsburgh was practically the movie's co-star. I loved that they didn't just make it a setting, the city & it's personality really factored into the plot.

Russel Crowe was 3 BLOCKS FROM MY HOUSE & I didn't even know it! See this ---> It's the playground on Mt. Washington. Hi Russell!!!

I appreciated that they actually used real traffic patterns. You didn't turn a corner & end up 7 miles away, it was like really driving where they went.

I never ran into traffic from them filming which I really appreciated. And we're still sorry for hitting you with a firetruck.

My favorite scene is when he puts on a black & gold jacket & fades into a line of people on their way to a Pens game. I like it for 2 seasons... a) these lines of people really happen ALL THE TIME and b) Pittsburghers will totally wear anything black & gold to a sports game even if it's the wrong team. We're unable to differentiate. Wear a Pirates jacket to a Pens game, go ahead, it's all just "Pittsburgh Sport" right?

Things they did wrong:

I only noticed 2 things. First is that there was no construction on rt. 28? I'm calling shenanigans on that.

This was the bigger thing. At one point a cop yelled "They're in the subway!" I half expected them to go get a hoagie because Pittsburgh doesn't have a subway. We do have a train, we call it the "T" & it's only underground for a few blocks downtown. *sigh* Nobody's perfect I guess.